Evidence of meeting #47 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was industry.
Director, B.C. Grain Producers Association
First, I'd like to start off with whether it is time for one political party in this country.
Director, B.C. Grain Producers Association
Philosophically we're a little different, but I think the point you raised is that there should be better communication in discussing this.
I was quite surprised when the 15% came up fairly rapidly. There wasn't a lot of discussion. We never heard the minister's side asking us what we thought about it. It was a matter of us hearing it put out there, and then suddenly it was there.
So there is a lack of communication not only among those on the farm side, but it's also lacking on the government side, looking for consultation.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Maybe my question should have been is the multi-voice system working.
Linda, I'd like to hear your comments too.
Southern Interior Stockmen's Association
I agree with Ross that one voice would be a very difficult theme to sell, but they need far better communication between the commodity groups. I don't know how to accomplish that. Often the producers on the ground are the last ones to know what's happening.
Liberal
Paul Steckle Liberal Huron—Bruce, ON
I'm going to continue this vein of thinking. I happen to watch Dr. Phil sometimes, because I need some direction from time to time.
Conservative
Liberal
Paul Steckle Liberal Huron—Bruce, ON
I intend to spend more time watching it.
The one question he always asks is, is it working? Usually the response is no. Well then, why are you doing it?
We've done this. We can have APF talks until a new generation of cows comes home, and we will be talking about this again 14 years from now.
Do we have a problem in this country? We have disparity among provinces, in terms of their ability to put forward programs. Saskatchewan can't do what Alberta can do. Ontario can't do what Quebec can do. Quebec has a program that is much better than ours, and in fact much more equal to the Americans than any other province in Canada.
Do we want to continue to go down that road and fight each other as provinces? I don't buy the suggestion that we can't talk to one another because we live 2,000 miles to the centre, apart from each other. We've living in a new age; we're not living back in the 1920s. We come together at meetings such as this in a matter of hours. We can congregate and bring our thoughts together.
It's time to look at a new generation of thinking. Regarding self-directed programs, we should have three or four in the basket under various colours. You choose what you want for your operation. If you're prepared to live with the consequences of your decision, you must live with them. Where you put in certain dollars—just as you would to insure your barn, house, or car at a certain value, given the comprehensive and so on—that's your decision. You can't blame a politician for that.
But it is incumbent on the government of the day, which I believe needs to be the federal government, to make a national program, just as we do in defence. The States doesn't have 51 different departments of agriculture putting forward programs. Yes, they have departments that relate, and we would still have that. But putting the policy in and initiating the moneys would come from a central source.
I believe this truly, and I will hammer it across this country over the next two weeks.
It's important that we start changing our thinking and do that collectively. We did what we had to do for the beef industry. We put money there, we built the capacity, and what's happening today is that 50% of our animals are going south of the border. I'm appalled. If we have a disaster tomorrow in the beef industry, we will have the same people coming back and asking for more help. That is not the answer. If you insure the barn and get your premium, that's all you can ask for. You can't ask for more; you made the decision.
It's incumbent upon the primary producers and government to work together. We have to deal with those circumstances that are beyond our control, beyond our borders. If once we commit to doing this, we will find a way to do it. Just as we find money for tanks and airlift capacity, we will find money to help farmers. In my opinion, the food security of this country is the most important issue we have to face in the next generation, including water.
I'm sorry, maybe I've taken my five minutes, but I needed to say this.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
You took three and a half minutes. You have a minute and a half minute left.
Liberal
Paul Steckle Liberal Huron—Bruce, ON
If you want to respond to that, I hope you do. I hope you think about it, at least.
Director, B.C. Grain Producers Association
Communication is always an issue. You can be very good at it, or you can put your head in the sand and ignore it.
I agree with the basis of what you're saying. We need to have discussion. If we ignore the discussion, then we all suffer. So it's about having a venue and an avenue to have those discussions.
From the federal government's side, you need to have it with the provinces, to buy into that as well. You have a role to play as well as the growers. I think you'd be the perfect leaders to do this.
Conservative
Southern Interior Stockmen's Association
Your point is very well taken about the provincial-federal disconnect. We see that in the beef industry in British Columbia. While the feds may put the money on the table, then the province doesn't come up to it. There's a huge disconnect, and I have no idea how to fix it. But it's something that needs to be looked at, that part of one voice for sure.
BC Fruit Growers Association
Mr. Chairman, I'm going to say that despite certain problem areas like CAIS, the APF has been a real stabilizing force. I think for long-term planning, going more than just one or two years down the road, you need to design national programs and delivery systems for at least a five- to ten-year timeframe.
The interesting thing with CAIS is that I think we could have solved a lot of our problems had we delivered the program here in B.C. Winnipeg has been our huge stumbling point all along. The APF did some very good work in terms of areas of food safety and the environment with rolling out the environmental farm plan program.
But one area that really needs concentration is this whole idea of renewal. It really didn't get a lot of focus in the first APF, but do we create a separate pillar for renewal? I think if you make all the pillars of the APF strong, you make the program strong. If you make the programs responsive, and responsive in such a way that you develop sustainability in agriculture, maybe we'll finally attract the young people that we so desperately need all across this country. In every community where farming is a mainstay, we need to find ways to attract newcomers to the industry, because it's pretty scary when the average age is 58 years.
That's just a bit of a plug; it wasn't in my presentation. But please look at renewal as being extremely important, because the producer base is eroding, and who is going to be the next generation of farmers? Ask yourselves that.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Thank you, Mr. Steckle.
I would like to follow up on your talking about what the pillars should be. We've heard this morning a lot of talk around the business risk management side, but if you had to prioritize where government resources should be going, where our concentration and effort should be, based upon the hearings we're having and what came out of the APF consultations in round two, it's all about business risk management. So if you're going to prioritize the pillars, where would that emphasis be? Is it on research? Is it on food safety? Is it the environmental issues? Or is it just in the subsidies in the programs?
That's one question I'm left with, and as a farmer it's something I struggle with. I know in my cow-calf operation the biggest benefit to me has been through research. New animal breeding, the genetics, has created the best economic return. The biggest hurt, though, was BSE. So how do we deal with it? In my personal opinion, it's disaster assistance and heavy investment in research and innovation, but I turn it back to you for some ideas on where you prioritize the pillars.
Ross.
Director, B.C. Grain Producers Association
I'd like to respond, if you don't mind, James.
I look at them and I have a problem when we use the word “pillars”. And we have “silos”, or we have.... I know it's a way of focusing the issues, but I'm afraid that we get into those “pillars” and we stay there, so everybody who's in that box is in that box and not looking at the one beside him. I think the analogy I used in British Columbia in the first round is that they're not pillars, they're sand dunes. And every sand dune touches another sand dune, whether it's halfway up or.... We have to look at that type of connection, because to separate which is more important, we don't recognize that they all touch and they all have effects and we have to get to that. So smart regulations are an issue. That's what you're looking at. You have to make sure the connection is made; otherwise, they become isolated.
For me, like you, James, I would say business risk management right now is an immediate problem. It's something that's in front of us right now. Science and innovation is the second pillar for me. That's where I see the future and the potential for the long-term sustainability of agriculture. That takes longer to happen, but we have to make sure we have the mechanism, the infrastructure, and the tax incentives to keep this thing going. But that's what has got us here and what's going to keep doing it. That's not to say any of the other ones aren't important, but that sand dune just has to keep going across.
BC Fruit Growers Association
Mr. Chairman, we won't discount the importance of BRM, but as I presented this morning, strategic growth is an area on which we could concentrate a lot more. We've seen examples of that already with the funding initiatives for the biofuels. Those area strategic investments in a sector that has had its challenges. This perhaps provides opportunity in that sector—hopefully producer-led opportunity--or producer involvement in the actual building of the ethanol and biodiesel plan, as real stakeholders.
Strategic growth involves other aspects, such as science and innovation. It's a method of governments partnering with industry to get the industry to the next level. That's why we've often thought of our national replant program initiative as fitting that particular description. It's a partnership; it's not a bailout. It's a way of getting a sector to be globally competitive and remain an integral part of rural Canada, and a contributor to that economy and the overall agricultural economy of Canada.
I think what's lacking here is perhaps that type of focus. We need to direct dollars into...maybe it's infrastructure. In our replant program there is kind of an investment in infrastructure, but if that's what it takes to make an industry viable, then let's look at those kinds of options.
Southern Interior Stockmen's Association
I agree with the fellows that all of the pillars are very intimately linked, and you can't really separate one from the other. The disaster insurance is completely crucial, but I think for the cattle industry, maintaining that landscape that we have there, not caving in to the urban pressures and the environmental concerns is very important for us.
In discussions, we're really looking forward to seeing what comes out of any of these EG&S consultations, or where that process would actually go, and whether that would be a fit and work for us all.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
I want to thank all of you for your presentations this morning.
We're going to suspend for lunch.
Mr. Gaudet, you have a small question?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
We'll be back at one o'clock, so we have an hour and a half. Checkout is at twelve, I believe, so check out and bring your luggage back to the room here.
With that, we will adjourn.
